Soon China is going to have more single males than the entire population of Australia

Terracotta Warriors.Wikimedia CommonsThe number of China's single men could exceed the entire population of Australia in five years' time, a Fujian government statistician has calculated.

There are likely to be 118.9 boys born for every 100 girls by 2020, Yao Meixiong, deputy director of census with the Fujian Provincial Bureau of Statistics, told The Paper website.

That would result in an extra 9.5 million men aged from 20 to 29, 12.6 million boys under 9-years-old and millions more in the ages in between. Australia's population is about 24 million.

At least 10 per cent of the nation's young men would not be able to find a spouse after 2020, Yao claimed, adding that the greatest imbalance would be among the youngest generation, meaning younger men would find it harder to find a partner.

He suggested this could lead to a new social group of single men being formed, most of whom would be poor and likely to remain single for the rest of their lives.

A census report of Xiamen city in Fujian found there were 111.69 men to every 100 women but the imbalance has been worse - in 2010 it was 118.37 to 100.

The ratio was 108.47 in 1982, 115 in 1994 and 121.2 in 2004, according to government figures.

Experts put the differences down to the one-child policy, gender selection procedures and a deeply rooted preference for boys over girls in Chinese families.